Authorities release person detained over Brown University shooting
A person of interest who was detained by police in Providence, Rhode Island in connection to the shooting at Brown University that killed two students and injured multiple other people was released from custody, authorities said late Sunday.
Mayor Brett Smiley acknowledged in a news conference that “this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community.”
“I’ve been around long enough to know that sometimes you head in one direction and then you have to regroup and go in another and that’s exactly what has happened over the last 24 hours or so,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said at the conference.
Brown University sent out an alert to the campus Saturday afternoon about an active shooter incident at the Barus and Holley engineering and physics building. Multiple exams were scheduled there from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. local time. Police later said the shooting happened on a first floor classroom.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said in an update that there is still limited access to some areas of campus as police continue their investigation, as well as some places that are still considered an active crime scene.
All remaining classes, exams, papers and projects for the Fall 2025 semester will not take place as scheduled, Brown University Provost Francis J. Doyle said.
“This choice was made out of our profound concern for all students, faculty and staff on our campus. In the immediate aftermath of these devastating events, we recognize that learning and assessment are significantly hindered in the short term and that many students and others will wish to depart campus,” he said in an update. “Students are free to leave if they are able. Students who remain will have access to on-campus services and support.”
Smiley met with some of those injured in the hospital. One of the students, whom he said showed “tremendous courage,” told the mayor that it was the active shooter drills they did in high school that helped them during the shooting on campus.
Smiley said at an earlier news conference that hearing this “at the same time provided me hope and was so sad.”
“We shouldn’t have to do active shooter drills, but it helped, and the reason it helped, and the reason we do these drills is because it’s so damn frequent,” he said.
He added that there “will be plenty of time to talk about what advocacy and policy changes should be made, but we’re still very, very much hard at work, at the task at hand, and that is to be able to bring charges forward on the person responsible.”
Two of the students at Brown University reportedly previously experienced school shootings. One of them, Mia Tretta, 21, was shot during the 2019 shooting at Saugus High School in California, where two people died and three were injured. Another, Zoe Weissman, 20, attended Westglades Middle School in Parkland, Florida, when there was a shooting at nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people died.
“No one in this country even assumes it’s going to happen to them,” Tretta said in an interview with NBC News. “Once it happens to you, you assume or are told it will never happen again, and obviously that is not the case.”
Weissman told the news outlet that when news first broke of the shooting, she was “panicked.”
“Once I knew a little more and I didn’t feel there was imminent danger, I felt numb — exactly how I did when I was 12,” she said. She added: “I’m angry that I thought I’d never have to deal with this again, and here I am eight years later.”
The Providence Journal reported that several hundred people attended a vigil in the aftermath of the shooting. The event was originally supposed to be a celebration of the first night of Hanukkah, Providence Councilor Sue AnderBois said.
“Instead we are gathered to share light in this dark time,” she was quoted by the Journal as saying. “We are here just to be together.”
Rabbi Sarah Mack, of Temple Beth-El, who spoke at the vigil, said “We gather this evening in stunned grief, in stunned shock.”
“We can use our light to kindle more light, that is how we can get through this dark moment,” Mack said.
The post Authorities release person detained over Brown University shooting appeared first on Straight Arrow News.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
